Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #9 – “Chapter Nine: Father’s Day”! In the previous installment, Bruce spends a lot of time crying about his mommy on Mother’s Day. Literally nothing else happens, except that they still can’t find the Holiday killer and Jim Gordon is trying to hunt Bruce down for questioning about his connection to the Falcone Crime Family of Crimes.

I’m whipping through these like crazy! Keep it going keep it going keep it going.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #9 [August, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Nine: Father’s Day”

“I remember my father…” Bruce thinks, wracking his brain to actually prove it. Bruce’s father was a doctor – something I didn’t know, especially since you can’t be a multi-billionaire by being a doctor – and here we have a flashback of a young Thomas Wayne trying to save the life of a bleeding young man on his dining room table. Bruce remembers this night. The young man couldn’t go to a hospital, this was the work of Luigi Maroni! If he were to go anywhere public, he would be killed on the spot. No, Dr. Wayne, this is your fucking problem now. Bitch.

Get those bullets out of those holes, and Vincent Falcone will remember fondly the Wayne family.

“I had never seen my father work. It was like… magic.”

Bruce realizes later that it was none other than Carmine “The Roman” “The Man” “The Plan” “The Canal” Falcone on that dining room table that fateful night. Way to go, Pops! You saved a criminal bastard. Eat shit.

Bruce finds himself behind bars, having finally been caught and taken downtown by Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. Alfred is on a witness stand during a trial and claims that, to his knowledge, Bruce Wayne and Carmine Falcone do not have a relationship (working or romantic or otherwise!). Bruce never accepted any form of payment (sexual or otherwise!) from Falcone.

District Attorney Harvard Dents asks Alfred then, why, why, WHY, why didn’t Thomas Wayne report the bullet gun crime so that Luigi Maroni could have been behind bars where he belonged? “Perhaps Dr. Wayne did file a report,” Alfred says calmly. “But, Gotham City was different then. The police, even the District Attorney’s office, were rife with grift.”

Your jaw is looking quite chiseled today, sir!

Gotham City is still the same, though, since Bruce Wayne’s two – count ‘em, TWO – parents were murdered and the criminal was never brought to justice. ORDER IN THE COURT! RABBLEROUSE RABBLEROUSE! Jim Gordon feels seen, as the kids say. That Alfred Pennyworth fucks, that’s all I have to say, as I’ve said many times before. And many times more in the future.

Elsewhere, Salvatore Maroni’s still-alive dad Luigi is plucking tomatoes out of his garden, mumbling about how he should’ve finished the whole killing-Carmine-Falcone job years ago.

“’Cause of this ‘Holiday’ goon… all my guys are dead,” Sal complains to his dad. “How do I fix this mess, Lou?”

“You can act like a man.”

lol

Anyway, this is an easy answer: kill Carmine before Carmine kills you. Idiot.

And then, out of nowhere, on Father’s Day, Salvatore Maroni’s father gets gunned down. Again, can I get an lol?

At the Roman’s penthouse, Sofia pays her father a visit. “Thought you’d wanna know,” she says. “The grand jury acquitted Bruce Wayne. Took about a minute and a half.” This causes Carmine to growl and take his leave. Atop another building across the street, Catwoman is spying on these two. Perhaps to think of Father’s Day gifts and/or encounters with her own father? Who is Selina Kyle’s father, anyway? Is his name Kyle Kyle?

Jim Gordon comes home super late to find his infant son cradling a card that says “For Dada” on it and a tie splotched with handprints. Gordon smiles in the only way Gordon knows how to smile (not at all) and says it’s the best gift he’s ever gotten.

This tie will go great with my sperm-stained dress shirt!

The next morning, Harvey Dent’s wife Gilda finds him in the basement sitting in the shadows. “I went to go see Dad,” he snivels. Gilda braces herself. “Still crazy as ever,” he continues. “He gave me something though, Gilda.” Harvey holds up a gleaming coin. He cries that a jury didn’t see what Harvey saw about Bruce Wayne. “It’s like they flipped a coin. Heads he wins; tails I lose. And Bruce Wayne. With all his money. His good family name. Goes back to high society.”

So what, Dent’s dad gave him the coin? Happy Father’s Day and all that? What did Harvey give him? Lip?

More Batman monologue recaps the Scarecrow’s escape from Arkham Asylum on Mother’s Day. “He did not do this alone. He had help.”

Scarecrow recites Pat-a-Cake while his buddy, Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter, a homicidal, delusional maniac, offers him tea. Tetch talks like hE’s eXtReMeLy OnLiNe. They’re both in Gotham Central Park doing god knows what, making out or something, when Carmine Falcone shows his pencil-mustached face. He has business for them regarding the Gotham City Bank Depository…

Cake cake cake, tea tea tea! Pah! I want burgers and fries and a large milkshake.

Meanwhile, at Wayne Manor, Bruce and Alfred have quite the conversation about Bruce’s father and how great he was at saving a criminal mastermind’s life. Alfred is like “yeah, well, he would have saved Hitler’s life if he came to his door, my good sir.”

Bruce wonders if he hadn’t saved Carmine Falcone’s life, the chain of events might have circumvented the whole getting murdered thing. “I… I just miss him, Alfred. Is that so wrong?” Tears form in Bruce’s eyes. Alfred touches Bruce’s shoulder. “No. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It makes me wonder if Alfred’s parents fell into a woodchipper when he was a lad, and no one ever asks how he feels.

We end with Harvey Dent busting into his office with his assistant, the Maroni-connected nerd Vernon. He has Maroni news. In that, Maroni is waiting in his office. Covered in blood. Holding the tie he got his dad for Father’s Day. “You want a piece of me. We both want a piece of Falcone. Maybe it’s time we found out what we can do for each other…”

Final Thoughts

Waaah, muh mudder and muh fadder! Waaaaah!!

Bruce is a wimp. Let’s make the rest of this run all about Alfred and his snarky exterior. Not snarky ENOUGH here, I say! I need him making fun of Bruce’s crying post-haste.